T2 invalidates T1 STILL?

I hear what you are saying, Nano. The problem is that the balance mods are getting updated so frequently they do not yet allow a stable platform for competitive play.

I do like what you all have done so far with the Realm Balance Mod. I have not been able to play it again for about 6 weeks.

RCBM is moving towards release and a stable environment. Tweaks will always be a thing based on feedback, observation and experimentation, but the goal of RCBM is to be stable enough for any modder to use it as a solid and balanced base for further additions to the game... Hell, we're planning to use it that way.

We have half-a-dozen mods in mind that will all have RCBM as a prerequisite and I invite anyone who'd like to use our changes as a springboard for their own mod to get in touch with us here on the forums.

I might look into that.

One bright spot is that Uber has more or less managed to give Air a reasonable T1 vs T2 balance: the T2 units fulfill valuable roles, while leaving room for the T1 units to stay relevant.

Now if only they can do that with the other 3 tech branches...

You realise that there are now only 4 combat aircraft (2 in basic, 2 in advanced) plus a scout and a transport, right? Hacking down the unit roster to only 4 combat units per factory type doesn't sound particularly interesting to me. Though I'm willing to admit that it would certainly be easier to balance such a reduced unit roster without overlap.

...

This is exactly why I'm choosing not to update Statera for two weeks before the tournament. Two weeks should be sufficient for competitives to learn the balance. We've had balance patches come out less than a week before tourneys in the past. It doesn't take too long to discover the meta, or, if there is none, the strategies that are available to you.


Really the main thing to worry about with regard to using server mods in tourneys is if the community will be able to adopt two balance mods for use in competitive play. I can see 1 of 3 things happening:

1. Both balance mods get adopted into competitive play. This is the preferred option as it increases the variety that we will see in tourneys. However, it also brings up the question of which one should be used in each tournament, and competitives will dislike it because they'll have to learn two balances, at least at first.
2. One of the balance mods is adopted into competitive play. This is the thing that I see most likely to happen. This will slow the development as mods as there won't be any competition to motivate the creators of the adopted and there will be little reason to develop a mod that nobody plays so the creators of the unadopted are unlikely to continue with development. Competitives will prefer this as it means that they only have to stay on top of one balance, making this option the preferred for the competitive community, at least in the short term.
3. Neither balance mod will get adopted into the competitive community because people are too heavily split between the two and people are unwilling to play the other. In order to preserve the size of the competitive community, people stick with vanilla. This is the most worrying thing that could occur by far. I think that the similarities between RCBM and Statera are abundant enough to allow people to jump between the two without too much trouble, and so long as we try to balance out the number of Statera and RCBM competitive events I don't think that we should have too much risk of this.

Again, stuart; it never was a competition.

And I'm not saying that it is. I'm simply stating that getting both mods adopted into the competitive community will be a challenge.

ahem...

How is this supposed to work in a competitive way? Do you provide your own ladders and matchmaking?

Also with as small as the player base right now seems to be, your server mods will compete for popularity, whether that is your personal mindset or not is irrelevant.

That being said, I can't imagine putting so much effort into it without the hope of it being wildly used, that would also automatically add a competitive component. Even if it were only one mod, it competes against the stock balance for popularity, or not?

Eh, unsure at the moment. Stuart has been trying to set up some tourney for it.

My mind set to create the mod in the first place was not to gain poularity, honestly I don't mind if my mod is used by nobody. I only wanted to create the balance I envisioned, and that I wanted to play... I wanted to give others the chance to experience it as well. Would it be cool if a lot of people played it? Yes! Definitely, in fact- even the couple that do now make me content.

I don't really think of any of this as some sort of competition, just two groups with ideas, trying to share there ideas with others. Is this the idea all hold? No, I'm aware one or two people (of both mods I assume) feel like this is a little competition at being "The best balance mod!", but I just don't feel this way at all.

Just to be on the safe side, this is purely out of curiosity and not meant to be offensively in any way.

Even though you don't consider it as a competition, the mod itself will naturally be.

I somehow still feel that there will be a more vanilla-like balance mod to come. I also see total conversions coming, like total total converisons. Like factions, civilization based, armor values with weapons and all, and thank God because PA won't fair well with just 2 mods for it, it needs 10 new ones every few months.

However, I like a lot of units to play with and Statera has a lot. I didn't really compare to RCBM because I don't compare my xboxes to my playstations as long as I get one that has thingies I wanted... but more unit types has downsides and goodsides, but mainly goodsides. Downside is knowing what things do, goodside is having fun building things and figuring out, there are no wrong answers just better right answers. Goodside also is having more detailed tools for the job in case you scout an enemy and want a particular effect like many low health units or single high health ones...

I'm starting a French Vanilla mod. No new units, just tweaked numbers to bring T2 more in line with specialized over upgrades and to bring back bots as a useful choice.

Oh, oh, suggestions!

-Vanguard give machinegun (rapidfire dox gun, half range of an ant, only thing weak enough to balance its massive health)
-Leveler is okay, maybe damage and rate of fire adjustment
-Sheller large AOE like now and fast fire but only ant shell damage
-Gil-e current massive damage but much lower rate of fire and walk speed (or no turret swivel so can't move and fire)
-Bluehawk less range and damage but hits land air and orbital (some unit needs to hit orbital)
-Advanced combat fabber just has longer fabrication range and same fabrication strength as basic
-t2 bomber does leveler damage and rate of fire, almost already does
-t2 fighter fire 4 missiles instead of 1, really slow fire rate, less dps than hummingbird
-Gunship high health with vanguard weapon
-Catapult hit air, pelter range
-holkins left alone
-t2 extractors produce 3x t1 extractor, costs over 60 seconds of it's own production to build
-t2 units cost 2x t1 unit cost
-t1 dox has same dps as ant but 4x rate of fire, ant has slower rate of fire than now, ant 1 hit kills dox, dox 1 hit kill dox. Dox kill 4x more dox than ant.
-t1 grenadier does ant damage with dox health, tanks are even with grenadiers except less cost effective, dox are terrific against grenadiers and mow them down. Notice the grenadier delay time between fire and hit on their weapon. Grenadiers still arc over **** and are awesome.
-t1 gets stinger back, to make it more french than vanilla give vehicle or bot flak and the other missile, flak is 1/3 damage with AOE.
-t1 naval, lets face it, you need to add raiding class units to naval, do either what statera or rcbm did, in statera's case just increase all vision range of t1 to their fire range and make naval scout into cheap raiding single cannon fast boat and possibly add t1 sub as a stronger just-torpedoes raiding boat.
-naval fabbers, give them all the best stats from land fabbers. Bot fabber speed, bot fabber cost, vehicle fabber health, 2x land fabber range, land fabber efficiency.

These ideas are parts of current mods and some are brand new concept, except this renders most t1 vanilla while bringing t2 down to all-one-stat'd t1s, and t1 bots brought back to power.

I would like to think vanilla would kick *** if it worked like this.

So far I've only changed the dox, hummingbird (uses ammo system, fires off 2 rockets, then has slower rate of fire due to ammo charge, otherwise same 1.0 fire rate, 1 rocket kills a hummingbird, 2 a bomber), and I nerfed the AA turrets health, but that's it. I've added 1 unit, and it will be the only unit I add, which is an AA bot. It has a slow rate of fire, long range, and can also shoot ground, making it the only bot that can kill ants by outranging them, BUT ants can close the gap and take them out before taking loses pretty easily (2 rockets to kill, .4 aps). I want to make the AA vehicle use the ammo system to give off a flurry of shorter range, lower damage missiles for AA, to give it the same role, but make it a bit different than the AA bot.

I want to make the catapult be able to target orbital, but that is about it, maybe a slight range buff? Debatable though, still want the umbrella to be the main anti orbital structure.

I want to avoid changing what I don't have to at first. Just trying to get the strategic icon to load for the new unit and then I'm moving onto balancing T2 itself, which is factory costs and unit health/damage/cost.

For the sheller what I would really like to do is make it so that it has to stop to fire, but it doesn't look like I can do that at the moment. I want to keep it high AOE, but will probably lower its rate of fire. I want it to be able to kill packed T1 units. Just not in rapid succession from 1 unit.

Leveller won't be tweaked much. I do want them to be higher damage strong hitters for defense, but easily swarmed by lots of T1.

Eh, I don't want to many units to attack air or orbital so I'll prob leave the bluehawk as is for now.

VANGAURD NERF! I'm leaving his weapon. I want him to get in close and 1 shot buildings, just a lower ROF, ammo system with high energy cost to match the uber cannon, lower health, perhaps lower cost to make up for the serious nerf. Lower AOE, but I haven't looked at the stats much so Idk if that will be needed.

Naval will be something I think about later. At the very least they will get a slight speed bonus.

You pretty much took the statera and rcbm suggestions and reversed them in the mentioned scenarios

I like the AA bot how it looks like planetside2 heavies firing rockets. BTW, RCBM said the only way they figured out how to make bot AA icon work for bot AA is renaming the whole damn thing like a brand new unit. Make the folder, unit,json and unit all named AntiAir_Bot or something, and then make the strat icon SI_AntiAir_Bot or something.

The naval changes I just suggest because naval is both boring and doesn't compete with land. Overbuffing it still makes it situational to having water access. Besides, it technically will never have a complete edge on land, holkins have 1 hit kill even on naval AND more range that the longest naval range. Naval needs some sparkle, my idea borrows it from land units. Fast raiders, slow enforcers, I added a naval combat fabber but really that was just sadistic of me ships synergize off heal even better than vehicles but it does give bluebottle and edge over raiders besides getting rushed by 4 cheap quick torpedo boats and overdamaged.

And specifically the naval fabber changes, the naval fabber being inefficient on start means land start naval rush is stronger than naval start naval rush. The range increase actually just supplements all naval range increase as well as facilitating naval fabrication reaching onto land. The longer fabrication means building a shore base is possible without a land fabber, and that ships can't snipe the fabber over the structure being built EVERY. DAMN. TIME. /hate.

I envy what modding brings to balance, makes me all excited all over. Carry on *high five*

Even that didn't work. Only solution is a client side mod.

ohh right, because icons check client first anyway. UBER needs to make server mod prioritize vanilla client, and client mod prioritize server clientside mod.

also, the mods need to play nice. If 2 unit json with seperate units exist, generate the difference.

I sure hope so, I've never seen a game suffer from having too many mods to choose from.

Hmm, I wonder how easily some of the balance ideas from old TA mods like Uberhack and XTA could be ported to work in PA.